Missing Football, Viking Theatre

The idea of everything you want just beyond your finger tips but being suddenly ripped away is told very well, without any gimmicks other than telling a good, honest story. In this case Stephen Wright, talented young footballer is getting his chance to play for the big leagues. Naturally, he is on cloud nine. In anticipation, as well as to give a little back to his parents, he takes a loan from the housing estate's resident money lender, where he is treated not as a star to be, but as a star in the here and now. But not for long, as an accident puts paid to his dreams and plans. It's what happens after this that the story really gets into gear.

The grey walls of the box set, white shelves, bed, and the white tape frame, reminding us of football posts and goal, is where Stephen tells his tale from. In classic monologue mode, he tells us his story, without the need for sections of prose. Stephen Kelly gives an everyday innocence, joy, bewilderment and that savage withheld pain of knowing he nearly had it all, as it echoes loudly in the silence in those moments. Kelly's Stephen is likable, and you do feel his torment, particularly as football is perhaps the only thing he is good at. It is a part that Kelly makes his own with ease and confidence.

Red Rock creator Peter McKenna's piece is a wonderful, direct and very engaging one act play, that has you at least curious about Stephen's situation, at most rooting for him. The ups and downs of life itself are charted well: how you're treated in the ascendancy or when there might be something in it for other people, and how it can all turn sour when there isn't anything in sight, giving it all a sense of loneliness. There is also getting caught in events when it does go sour, and what do you do in those situations. It is all told through Stephen and his love, and dreams, about football. In some ways it could be about any ones' dreams, The X Factor hopefuls for instance, but football has that wonderful, universal appeal, as does Stephen. 

The intimate space of the Viking Theatre is truncated a little bit more, giving it a tighter focus, and all of this helps point out the course of events, directed by the theatre's own Laura Dowdall, taking a natural approach to it. All of this culminates in a good night of theatre, with a story that moves along well, nothing lagging, nothing superfluous, and one that will linger in the mind.